The SIFF opening party was as ever it is: A 40-minute slog up a narrow staircase, then a 30-minute feeding/drinking frenzy, followed by standing around, followed by a mass exodus around 11 pm. The food lines are a lot like SIFF lines: From the end of the queue, you can’t see what awaits you at the beginning, so everything is a delicious (or not so much) surprise! We got saddled with a Sterling merlot (mehck!) and Chipotle Mexican Grill. Better luck next year. New for 2006: DJs who thought they playing a 1980s bar mitzvah.

Northwest Film Forum programming director ADAM SEKULER enjoined us to take off our clothes! No, that’s not right—he merely expressed his wish that more people would take off their clothes! He actually enjoined us to attend The T.A.M.I. Show, a “who’s-who of early ’60s rock” on Friday, June 2 at 9 pm, followed by a raucous after-party at 11.

Seattle filmmaker DAVID RUSSO, looking bohemian in a patterned synthetic shirt and hand-knitted brown scarf, said he’s moving from Wedgwood to Magnolia, and he’s not happy! Magnolia, apparently, is not a place where one can walk one’s cat around the block with no clothes on at 2 am.

Continuing the naked theme, Seattle Weekly film critic BRIAN MILLER—just kidding! We just wanted you to envision Brian Miller naked. Mr. Miller was spotted flirting wildly (that means whole sentences!) with a lady friend next to a plasma-screen TV advertising Vitamin Water.

And Seattle actor TOM SKERRITT posed for a Kodak moment with The Illusionist star JESSICA BIEL in the awkward enclave of the VIP Lounge.

And what OFFICIAL SIFF GUIDE WRITER confessed to reading a Variety review that dismissed a certain movie’s central concept a “gimmick,” then reframing the official blurb as follows: “Although it may seem like a gimmick…”? Propaganda, we’re telling you! SIFF Notes is your guide to the Seattle International Film Festival.